24 Common CV Mistakes and How To Correct Them

A professional CV should sell your services to potential employers and is very important for a career search. It can also work against you if it is not written accurately. It’s exceptionally difficult to repair the damage once an employer notes mistakes on your CV. To avoid all this mistakes and CV rejection, consider the points below:

2.Avoid typographical & Grammatical Errors There’s no allowance for carelessness. C Vs with such errors contain a very expensive mistake that may lead to disqualify the candidate. Language used while chatting on Social media is a grime error if used on your resume. It may lead the interviewer to read between lines and conclude that you are careless or even worse.

3.Omitting dates is a drastic mistake Skipping out precise employment dates often raises suspicion and makes it appear that the job seeker is covering up. If there's a large gap in your resume addressing the issue in a cover letter. Potential employers need to know your tenure, good or bad.

4.Provide a comprehensive amount of Skills Employers want to know your accomplishments. Quantify details to show the magnitude of your job using realistic figures achieved with concrete evidence to support your assertions. Place as much relevant information as possible up front highlighting your accomplishments to catch the employer's eye. Avoid being vague at all times.

5.Use appropriate Key Words & Skills. Use the right keywords to highlight your CV for the job. Omitting skills is one common resume mistakes that may prove devastating. Ensure that populated skills are current using common phrases that routinely pop up in the job descriptions of your targeted role to pass the initial screening stages and place your CV on the recruiter’s desk

6.Tailor-make your CV for Specific requirements. While attempting to secure a job, ensure you tailor make your resume to suit the particular Job Description. Recruiters expect candidates to clearly show how they would fit in the position. Non specifics may lead to automatically dismissal of a candidature.

7.Highlight Accomplishments rather than duties Employers would care more on accomplishments than duties / activities.

8.Avoid Bad Objectives Employers do read objectives from your resume & often they dig through career objectives. Give employers specific objectives and ones that focus on a combination of their needs as well as your own

9.Don’t Leave Off Important Information You may be tempted not to mentioning the jobs you've taken to earn extra money for school. However, the skills you've gained from these experiences like work ethics & time management are more significant to employers than you might think.

10.Ensure relevant information. Talk about responsibilities and accomplishments you've had that are relevant to the job applied for. Don't include everything you've done in your current position. Candidates should answer the requirements within the job listing while highlighting their most relevant employment story and achievements that map back to what the employer is looking for.

11.Length matters Recruiters spend longer time on a resume therefore the longer your resume, the difficult it will be to scan it. Mentioning this, the ideal length of a CV should be limited to two pages. However, don't cut the meat out of your resume simply to make it conform to a one-page standard. Focus on the highlights mainly. Use formatting techniques like bullets and short paragraphs to enhance readability. Try limiting it to the last 10 - 15 years of work experience. You don't need to include everything you ever did.

Formatting makes it easy to scan and recognize your job goals and qualifications. Overdoing this will most likely distract the recruiter from the main requirements. Use similar bullets all sections and align them equally throughout your CV.

Use extra lines and clean font to highlight job titles. Stick to black and white color and use simple fonts & specific formatting rules. Avoid dense block text as they are too difficult to read. Be consistent with locations and indentations & have enough White spaces on the CV to draw eyes to important points.

14.Use an executive summary instead of objectives. Objectives are disturbing and are a misuse of space & time in a resume. Substitute objectives with executive summaries, enough to be a to the point elevator pitch that explains you and elaborates your interests. Briefly explain your strengths & your value to an employer. If you have to use an objective statement, avoid using one which deviates with the target job. Make sure it underscores your interest in the work you are applying.

15.Reverse chronological order. As a recruiter, you always want to know what the candidates been doing in recent years immediately. Try focusing on specifics of current jobs and reduce explanations as you go back in time.

16.Align your resume with your online profiles. Ensure that your online profiles & CVs are singing the same song. Have consistent details maintained as in names, contacts and other details maintained on LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook, etc.

17.Avoid Action Verbs Avoid phrases like "accountable for" and alternatively use action verbs: "Resolved “XYZ” as part of “ABC” and quantify if possible.

18.Including your photo Never include a photo with your resume unless you're applying for a profession where looks are a part of the job profile, e.g. modeling as it elevates chances of discrimination. The recruiter should spend time considering whether your skills fit the open position instead of looking at your picture.

19.Include your URL to your professional online profile. This enables hiring managers to see what you look like after spending appropriate time examining your resume. Recruiters likely look you up on social sites to find more about you. Include your professional URL along with your contact information to prevent them from guessing or mistaking you for someone else.

20.Embedding tables, images, or charts. Don’t affix tables or images on your resume as it perplexes the Resume tracking software and clutter your resume in the system.

21.Using headers and footers. Though it makes your CV neat and concise to display your contact information in the header, Note that this too often gets it scrambled in an CV Software's. Even if they were interested in your resume, you may get eliminated because recruiters won't know how to contact you.

22.Include a company description. A brief description of your current company will let the hiring manager understand the industries you've worked in easing decision to hire you if you have qualities required for the job being familiar to the working environment handling equal or more responsibilities.

23.Include relevant hobbies. Hobbies of relevant charitable volunteer work may be helpful. Tailor the skills acquired participating in the hobby to the job you're applying for.

24.Including "references upon request." Remember that space on your resume is crucial. Don't waste it on a meaningless line. Recruiters know that you will provide references if requested, so there's no reason for you to include this line. For more information about this articles, visit http://www.ndubestexplorer.com/2014/07/24-common-cv-mistakes-and-ho...